Transnational Children’s Television

Abstract

/ This article examines children’s television in the context of the debate on media globalization by positioning Viacom-owned Nickelodeon, currently beamed into more than 400 million households, as a quintessential type of transnational television that is critical to understanding the contemporary landscape of media industries and cultures worldwide. The author argues that the majority of globally branded children’s television networks, in comparison to other types of transnational television often associated with multidirectional media flow, tend to be merely clones of the original US versions. However, this argument is intended to move beyond traditional references to either cultural or American imperialism. By counterposing two locales, the article uses Nickelodeon’s operations in New Zealand and Australia as a case study to critically examine the corporate practice of localization employed by a US transnational children’s multimedia brand in different media markets.